As a student speaker at TC’s virtual Convocation in May, Woo-Jung Amber Kim praised the “incredible adaptability” of her classmates this past spring. Kim has demonstrated the same quality in following a career path that has oscillated between classroom teaching and explorations of diverse cultures.
At Teachers College, where he was unanimously chosen as the inaugural Anne R. Gayles Felton Endowed Scholar, Angel Acosta has honed a practice of healing-centered education aimed at structural change for a nation torn by racism and hate. At its center are the use of meditation, mindfulness and a 400-year timeline of injustices against America's marginalized populations
Max Frieder, co-founder of the international non-profit Artolution, is personally leading a project in Bangladesh to build a team of Rohingya visual artists and musicians who are creating culturally relevant messaging around issues of human rights, gender-based violence, host-refugee relations and public health.
After years of confronting lack of access to literacy education in impoverished areas of Latin America, Victoria Henry Cervantes discovered the same gaps in the South Bronx. She came to Teachers College to learn how to best serve students with unmet academic and emotional needs.
One of seven children raised by a struggling single parent, D.L. Moffitt has navigated his own education with huge success. But as he's pondered how fate and circumstances point people along very different paths, his interests have turned from teaching to policy. Next up: a law degree and perhaps a career in politics.
Azsaneé Truss came to TC to be an educational technology specialist who would design K-12 curricula. But through the College’s MASCLab, she discovered critical media literacy, youth participatory action research, and the power of multi-modal scholarship. It all came together when a mentor told her: “You may be an academic.”
When Christa McAuliffe perished in the Challenger space shuttle explosion, Eddie Ortiz decided to become a teacher. McAuliffe's dictum to take risks inspired him to earn a master's degree -- and now, to pursue a Ph.D.
Zad El-Makkaoui had long dreamed of studying at Teachers College. The experience gave her all that she'd hoped for — including the ability to push through others' resistance to raise difficult issues of difference.
Neuroscience, experiential learning, Jewish education, social and emotional learning, cognitive science...Joey Eisman has followed a path of many turns in a quest to help young people develop a sense of identity and positive values. The next step in his journey: a Ph.D. program in Educational Psychology.
As someone who has come out as queer, transgender and as being on the autism spectrum, Dylan Kapit possesses an especially broad capacity for empathy and understanding — qualities essential to a teacher's ability to connect with students.
People always told Cindy Ling that she’s be a great businesswoman — and she proved them right, moving rapidly up the corporate ladder. But her heart lay in education — and her skills in building productive relationships have proved useful in her new career path: school counseling.
Charmagne came to TC to fulfill her dream of becoming a physical therapist. She calls working in the College’s EXerT Lab “the greatest opportunity ever” — but after serving as Student Senate Vice President and working with homeless youth she’s decided to pursue a greater need to “give back.”
Ayesha Rabadi-Raol’s dissertation is about “Learning from Immigrant/Transnational Teachers of Color.” Since the COVID crisis began, she’s reinforced that idea through a weekly show on TC’s Come Together site in which she reads from children’s books that address race, class, gender, (dis)ability, multicultural experiences and other topical themes.